“There is nothing inevitable about homelessness or about these tragic deaths which are a consequence of a housing system which fails too many people,” he added.

The charity blamed a “crippling shortage of social housing” as well as a “threadbare safety net”, as it called on the Government to change tack to end the scourge.

The Local Government Association said ending homelessness was becoming “increasingly difficult” with a funding gap, as it called for “proper resourcing”.

The statistics came a day after MPs were told about the death of a homeless man, a 43-year-old known as Gyula Remes, who was found outside the Houses of Parliament.

He was the second homeless man known to have died near the Palace of Westminster this year, but the fresh statistics show the scale of such deaths across the nation.

London was the worst hit last year with more than a fifth of the estimated deaths, at 136, while the North West had 119.

But over that period the estimated toll in London remained largely stable, whereas the North West saw a jump of 115 per cent from 55.

Estimates for the North East also saw a 71 per cent increase, from 18 to 32.

Government figures released last week showed the number of households living in temporary accommodation in England had risen by five per cent in a year to 82,310.

Data previously showed the number of people officially recorded as sleeping on the streets of England rose from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,751 in 2017, but charities warned the true figure could be more than double this.

Work on the latest ONS figures was prompted by research from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in October, which found that at least 449 homeless people had died in the UK in the previous 12 months.

The ONS defined homeless people as those sleeping rough or using accommodation such as homeless shelters or hostels at around the time of their death.

Picture: A homeless person in London earlier this year. (Velar Grant/Zuma Press/PA).